Desai & Diwanji acted on 24 M&A deals in the 2009 calendar year, placing it at the top of data provider mergermarket's M&A league table by volume. Amarchand Mangaldas topped the table by value, having advised on M&A deals worth $6.4bn in 2009, while Khaitan & Co and AZB & Partners also gave a strong showing.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Trilegal have represented Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) and Heineken International respectively on brokering the agreement to allow United Breweries (UB) to make Heineken brand beer in India.

Khaitan & Co Bangalore and local boutique Menon Associates have advised on the MindTree acquisition of US handset maker Kyocera Wireless' Indian arm for Rs 29 crores ($6m) and further consideration linked to future revenues.

Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai has advised Aditya Birla Group in the series of mergers between Grasim Industries, Samruddhi Cements and UltraTech Cements, creating India's largest and the world's tenth largest cement manufacturer.

For the first time this year, Desai & Diwanji and Khaitan & Co are leading the third quarter Indian M&A rankings both by value and volume of deals, pushing Amarchand Mangaldas two places down mergermarket's value league table compared to three months ago.

Amarchand Mangaldas, AZB & Partners and Luthra & Luthra have benefited the most from the dash to hit the markets by month-end, as 16 companies filed draft initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses in the last two weeks.

Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co. and Linklaters Singapore are working to help Reliance Infratel on its initial public offering (IPO), which looks to raise around US$ 1 billion (Rs. 5000 crore) from the market.

Amarchand Mangaldas, J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Australian firm Mallesons Stephen Jacques have advised on the Macqaurie-SBI Infrastructure Fund, which is slated to be the biggest fund investing in the Indian infrastructure sector to date.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has worked with J Sagar Associates (JSA) as counsel to energy major BP selling around Rs 460 crore ($95m) of Indian windfarms to private equity-backed Green Infra, which was advised by Luthra & Luthra.